Rail transport in

Nauru Nauru ( or ; na, Naoero), officially the Republic of Nauru ( na, Repubrikin Naoero) and formerly known as Pleasant Island, is an island country and microstate in Oceania, in the Central Pacific. Its nearest neighbour is Banaba Island in Ki ...

is used for moving

calcium pyrophosphate Calcium pyrophosphate (Ca2P2O7) is a chemical compound, an insoluble calcium salt containing the pyrophosphate anion. There are a number of forms reported: an anhydrous form, a dihydrate, Ca2P2O7·2H2O and a tetrahydrate, Ca2P2O7·4H2O. Deposition ...

from the island's interior to the

cantilever A cantilever is a rigid structural element that extends horizontally and is supported at only one end. Typically it extends from a flat vertical surface such as a wall, to which it must be firmly attached. Like other structural elements, a canti ...

jetties A jetty is a structure that projects from land out into water. A jetty may serve as a breakwater, as a walkway, or both; or, in pairs, as a means of constricting a channel. The term derives from the French word ', "thrown", signifying somet ...

on the island's western coast. For this purpose, a 3,900 m long, 0.6096 m

narrow gauge railway A narrow-gauge railway (narrow-gauge railroad in the US) is a railway with a track gauge narrower than standard . Most narrow-gauge railways are between and . Since narrow-gauge railways are usually built with tighter curves, smaller structur ...

was built by the

Pacific Phosphate Company John T. Arundel (1 September 1841 – 30 November 1919) was an English entrepreneur who was instrumental in the development of the mining of phosphate rock on the Pacific islands of Nauru and Banaba (Ocean Island). Williams & Macdonald (1985) ...

in 1907. The line passes through the districts of Aiwo, Buada,

Denigomodu Denigomodu is a district in the western part of the island of Nauru. It is the most populous district in Nauru. It houses the expatriate housing compound "The Location". This makes it Nauru's largest settlement by population. 25.7% of the people ...

Nibok Nibok is a district in the island nation of Nauru in the Micronesian South Pacific. It is located in the west of the island and covers an area of 1.6 square kilometres (395 acres). Nibok is a part of the Ubenide Constituency. As of 2011, ...

Uaboe Uaboe (also known as Waboe) is a district in the island nation of Nauru, located in the northwest of the island. Geography Covering about 0.8 km², Uaboe has a population of 330. Uaboe is the second-smallest district in Nauru. It is the only ...

and Anibare.

History

The railway at Aiwo jetty was electrified in 1912, but replaced by a conveyor belt between the storage bins and the jetty head. The gauge was upgraded to 0.9144 m

by the

British Phosphate Commission The British Phosphate Commissioners (BPC) was a board of Australian, British, and New Zealand representatives who managed extraction of phosphate from Christmas Island, Nauru, and Banaba (Ocean Island) from 1920 until 1981. Nauru was a mandate te ...

in 1920. In the past,

steam engine A steam engine is a heat engine that performs mechanical work using steam as its working fluid. The steam engine uses the force produced by steam pressure to push a piston back and forth inside a cylinder. This pushing force can be trans ...

s were used to power the trains, but the railway is nowadays worked by

diesel engine The diesel engine, named after Rudolf Diesel, is an internal combustion engine in which ignition of the fuel is caused by the elevated temperature of the air in the cylinder due to mechanical compression; thus, the diesel engine is a so-call ...

s, though occasionally, a

tractor A tractor is an engineering vehicle specifically designed to deliver a high tractive effort (or torque) at slow speeds, for the purposes of hauling a trailer or machinery such as that used in agriculture, mining or construction. Most common ...

is used. With Nauru's phosphate deposits almost depleted, the future of the railway is uncertain. The trains were still running as of 2008. Nauru's phosphate train features on several Nauru stamps, including a series from 1980 (

Yvert Yvert et Tellier is a postage stamp dealer and a philatelic publishing company founded in 1895 in the northern French city of Amiens, where the head office is still located. The logo is a circle divided into a snowflake and a smiling sun. It is a ...

no. 211-213) and another one from 1985 (Yvert no. 306, Scott no. 308). The trains of Nauru have been depicted on commemorative Nauruan postage stamps.

External links

* David Jehan
''Tramways, Coconuts and Phosphate: A History of the Tramways of Ocean Island and Nauru.''
Light Railway Research Society of Australia Inc.

References

{{Nauru-stub Transport in Nauru Rail transport in Oceania by country

History

See also

External links

References